Recap: Nick Valensi's New Band CRX Live at Schubas

Last night we were able to see CRX at just their second/last headlining show of their mini tour this month. The band fronted by Nick Valensi, of The Strokes fame, was preparing for a string of dates in the Midwest on Beck’s tour, and ahead of the release of their debut project Naked Eyes.

It’s hard to recap a show for which your only substantive point of reference is the lead single “Ways To Fake It” (below) but we couldn’t pass up the chance to see firsthand some of the music that will surely appear on that new project.

Nick Valensi is actually a rather good frontman. His vocals aren’t filled with bravado and his stage presence isn’t domineering as you may expect from a lot of lead singers in Rock & Roll, but Valensi can still captivate a crowd nonetheless. The intimate setting of Schubas was an excellent way to not only test out the new material, but for Valensi to further cement his position at center stage and commanding the mic. The music itself is very much guitar Rock, each song having a defining riff that will get you playing air guitar in no time. I was surprised there was only one song (can’t tell you the name of it, though) that had a prominent guitar solo, but still, the other tracks did not suffer from not featuring mind-bending string-picking. It’s safe to say that picking a top 5 won’t be a difficult task, so now we’re anxious to hear studio versions of these songs once they’re released on October 28.

Check out our gallery after the jump and head over to Facebook to see all of the pictures we captured.

“Ways To Fake It”